JANUARY 9, 2017 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT POLL

Git Probe might be one of the weakest cards in the deck, but that's saying a lot. The card is completely fool proof. If you draw it in your opener there is a 100% chance that the right thing to do is cast it. It's a free roll for the cost of what amounts to nothing and the information you get removes all skill from the game. "Herp derp, no Force? Oh that sucks for you, game over. ". Or, "oh, you got 2x Force and a bunch of action, guess I should hold off for a few turns and find my Flusterstorm first." That's not what Magic should be about. Probe is the least skill demanding card ever printed. Yes, ever printed.

Post above, SPOT ON. It isn't about the power level of the card as far as "doing" broken things. Its the information gained with no draw back allowing players to know they dont have to play around anything. Wizards said it perfectly in thier reasoning for banning it in modern, except in Vintage its even more absurd. A big part of magic is leaving that XX mana untapped to make the opponent think you got an answer. Bluff or not, Git Probe just completly nullifies that thinkn mans part of the game.

@vaughnbros Reflector Mage is indeed a hilarious banning. It's also emblematic. They have pushed creatures overall so hard in recent years that a gold three-drop with an improved Man-o'-War effect is the 2016 version of Mana Drain.

@enderfall Its goes right along the Derpstep, 2W win the game, and the other low skill cards in the Mentor Gush. Probe makes decision making easier, but if it were so good people would actually misstep it. I'll reiterate that restricting changes nothing in terms of decks. Maybe it makes playing the game slightly harder... not something that I honestly really care about. The game is plenty hard already.

@vaughnbros I'm nobody when it comes to having a track record, but if it's turn 1, I Misstep the crap out of Probe. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like it's almost a losing battle after that, especially if I have nothing really going on.

fun fact: all the cards banned in Standard have won Vintage tournaments.

I'm sort of happy to see those cards banned for selfish reasons as it allows me to obtain them for far less. I suspect they'd have plummeted post rotation as well, but the fire sale prices should be pretty sweet.

On the other hand this is a sign that Standard is doing very poorly. I don't play the format, and I'm sure most of the folks on this board don't either, but it is very important to the health of the game. Hopefully things get better soon, as the WotC brass is obviously very concerned.

I'm strongly in the camp of restricting Gitaxian Probe and Preordain and Gush. Restricting Gush alone will actually make mentor MORE of a problem, as people get away from playing low land counts and partial moxen, and move toward full artifact mana and play cards like Thirst for Knowledge or Paradoxical Outcome, and as such give themselves a much better Eldrazi/Workshop Match.

I have said for awhile that perfect knowledge of Gitaxian Probe is an issue. For years, I've played combo decks with Duress as my only disruption (In GWSx for example), and I would laugh at the double Force of Will + Mana Drain hands. A good player, given perfect knowledge, can play around your hand more often than not, and I showed this multiple times, including when I top 8ed the ICBM Power Nine tournament with GWSx and when I top 8ed Champs with Drain Tendrils.

Gitaxian Probe, while not stripping a card out of your hand, also reads "Create a 1/1 Monk Token. All Monks you control get +1/+1 until end of turn", ON TOP of being FREE, letting you map your plays perfectly (or near-perfectly if your Opponent has a draw spell and/or Top), replacing itself, AND being blue! The card is a Gitaxian Problem.

Preordain should definitely go on the list as well, because it's a crime to me that Preordain is not restricted when Ponder is restricted; and without Gush being restricted, there is no way Ponder comes off. And even if Ponder comes off and Gush goes on, without any of the other changes I've mentioned, nobody will want to play that format either as the 4 Ponder 4 Probe 4 Preordain find Time Vault/Key by turn 3 every game decks will not be enjoyable or skill-testing to play against.

Keep in mind, while I still somewhat like playing Vintage, I don't enjoy playing the same exact versions of decks 3+ times in a tournament; I also don't enjoy the fact that when my opponent can either just draw free cards and/or get perfect information at any time, it really closes the gap between top level play skill (which I'd argue I have) and the average/below average playskill of many vintage players, since the power-level of the cards significantly decreases the amount of time you have to react to your opponents good draws; the ability to make smart plays, plan your turns, and come back from a deficit with these cards is so much smaller than it used to be. I remember a couple cases at Eternal Weekend where during the game, I was even telling my opponent how to play their deck correctly, because it just didn't matter because they had turn 1Mana Crypt, Land, Mentor, Probe, Preordain, and Force of Willed my first spell, then turned on Gush into Flusterstorm turn 2 and I just died.
That example doesn't really outline the playskill point (which is more my opinion that more powerful cards give monkeys a better ability to win magic games) but definitely outlines the ability for these cards to just close out games way too quickly.

Brian Demars once said of Jace, the Mind Sculptor "People will dismiss this card in Vintage, and then everyone will run 1, and then I'll run 2, then everyone will run 2, and then I'll run 3, and then eventually, everyone will run 4". (and for awhile, a variety of decks did run 3 or 4!)

I feel Gitaxian Probe, while clearly not on the same level as Jace (though close, since Casting Cost disparity gives leeway to ability), Gitaxian Probe is a card people really SHOULD just play 4 of.

I'll be getting back on MTGO shortly, and every deck I play will have a bare minimum of 3 Gitaxian Probe, and most likely 4.

The camp that's still mad about LSG/CotV; why don't you just combine your arguments and simplify your text walls.

Really what you want is zero restricted cards in Workshops/Eldrazi, additionally every blue instant/sorcery that is a card advantage or quality spell needs to be restricted. Except for the aforementioned that rely on fast mana to be competitive, because having games devolve into who drew the most fast mana is oh so much more healthy and enjoyable than having to actually play Magic with the person sitting across from you.

Sorry, but we had to sit through this from 2001-2007 then had to sit through six years of Martello being so good the 75 literally didn't change over the course of that time span. You guys are straight delusional.

My theory, 99% of you have no clue how to play MTG - thus need this format to devolve into base fundamentals that pander to your desire for validation and ego stroking.

All: Probe in Modern enables much different play patterns than Probe in Vintage.

Same with Gush. It would be ridiculously busted in other formats, and just kicked off storm or storm-like patterns the last two times it was legal in Vintage, where it went to 11 so quickly. Somehow, today, the worst thing you can really do is Mentor, but the average thing you can do is meaningfully engage in combat and other small-ball value-driven resource fights on multiple axes. Kind of awesome!!!

@Soly what you just wrote is basically the complete opposite of what is actually happening. Gush can easily encourage boring and degenerate play patterns in the abstract, so it's definitely something to watch for. But in today's specific environment the only viable Gush-driven play pattern that is genuinely uninteresting is Mentor-as-proxy-for-Tendrils/Tinker. It's tough to get around - the tactical weaknesses of Mentor are offset by the tactical strengths of white control cards. Wouldn't mind restriction of Mentor just because it's frankly a little boring, but this opinion isn't super strong.

The other effects of Gush today are awesome.

Games that don't end OR effectively end before turn 3

Cards that are one thing some of the time and something else other times (think Lightning Bolt, or JVP, or better yet Bolt and JVP in the same deck)

Explicitly bringing the necessary skill of considering mana efficiency and mana curve out of good deck designers

Meaningful combat in some matchups. This includes blocking and removal, but also tempo-related concepts like racing and how it affects the sequencing of plays

Less off-color Moxen and more attention to color balance in manabases.

Multi-purpose lands. This feeds back into the "things that are two different things" theme - Gush decks are running Strip Mines etc. to make sure they have big enough manabases but can do something with excess land. It would be better still if the format shifted to a place where Gush decks had to consider sometimes running creature-lands - or if non-Gush decks got edge from being able to more easily run them.

This needs to go even further. Vintage would be better, for instance, if value 2-for-1s like Searing Blaze were viable. Then players could squeeze more out of their decks, and gameplay gets more interesting and varied. This is more likely with Gush than without: to use my example, Searing Blaze is only a 2-for-1 if damage to the face and damage to small creatures are actually valued effects.

Basically, circa-2006 Vintage really only made you care about one thing (accumulate enough stuff to resolve Yawg Will) and 2016/17 Vintage makes you care about multiple things. Which is awesome.

I suspect you won't agree with any of this, but you want Vintage Magic to be chess and I prefer that Vintage Magic be Magic.

Also: I'm sure you're very skilled, but maybe you're overestimating your own skill when you talk about how you're not winning as often now?

@Soly what you just wrote is basically the complete opposite of what is actually happening. Gush can easily encourage boring and degenerate play patterns in the abstract, so it's definitely something to watch for. But in today's specific environment the only viable Gush-driven play pattern that is genuinely uninteresting is Mentor-as-proxy-for-Tendrils/Tinker. It's tough to get around - the tactical weaknesses of Mentor are offset by the tactical strengths of white control cards. Wouldn't mind restriction of Mentor just because it's frankly a little boring, but this opinion isn't super strong.

The other effects of Gush today are awesome.

Games that don't end OR effectively end before turn 3

Cards that are one thing some of the time and something else other times (think Lightning Bolt, or JVP, or better yet Bolt and JVP in the same deck)

Explicitly bringing the necessary skill of considering mana efficiency and mana curve out of good deck designers

Meaningful combat in some matchups. This includes blocking and removal, but also tempo-related concepts like racing and how it affects the sequencing of plays

Less off-color Moxen and more attention to color balance in manabases.

Multi-purpose lands. This feeds back into the "things that are two different things" theme - Gush decks are running Strip Mines etc. to make sure they have big enough manabases but can do something with excess land. It would be better still if the format shifted to a place where Gush decks had to consider sometimes running creature-lands - or if non-Gush decks got edge from being able to more easily run them.

This needs to go even further. Vintage would be better, for instance, if value 2-for-1s like Searing Blaze were viable. Then players could squeeze more out of their decks, and gameplay gets more interesting and varied. This is more likely with Gush than without: to use my example, Searing Blaze is only a 2-for-1 if damage to the face and damage to small creatures are actually valued effects.

Basically, circa-2006 Vintage really only made you care about one thing (accumulate enough stuff to resolve Yawg Will) and 2016/17 Vintage makes you care about multiple things. Which is awesome.

I suspect you won't agree with any of this, but you want Vintage Magic to be chess and I prefer that Vintage Magic be Magic.

Also: I'm sure you're very skilled, but maybe you're overestimating your own skill when you talk about how you're not winning as often now?